The End of Writer's Block - woo hoo!

I'm so proud of myself! I got six pages written today on the article about placenames! Woo hoo! Yippee skippy! Well, technically, it was five pages since one page was references. But still! That doubled the number of pages I'd written to a total of 10 (including references).

Woo hoo! Or did I say that already?

I'm pretty relieved, too, because this puts me in really good shape to complete it by the November 1st deadline. Whew. I now have a pretty good vision of the rest of the article, too. I may end up with another 8-10 pages, which is a respectable length for a paper. (By the way, it's at a line and a half spacing - if I used double-spacing, I'd probably have about 13 or 14 pages now.)

All the time I invested in studying the list and finding duplicates served me well. It was also good preparation for my trip to Anchorage on Saturday - I now have a good handle of the questions I need to ask in order to be confident that our place-name list is as accurate as we can make it.

Speaking of the Anchorage trip, I think I'm in relatively good shape there, too. I've started gathering files and other materials that I need for the trip (informed consents, etc.); I have a decent list of people I'd like to interview; I have a power point presentation to show community members in order to get their feedback on what information I should include on our interactive map; I have a prototype interactive map to show; I have my audio recorder and camera ready to go - well, I've given them to my new grad student, Danielle, so she will know how to use them so that she can handle the technical stuff and I can do my interviews; I've notified community members and two of the researchers I've worked with that I will be in town - one has responded and will join us for a day or two of finalizing placename lists. I still haven't found a room to show the powerpoint, and the other researcher has not responded to several emails and a phone call - not much I can do there. Overall, I'm in good shape; I know which community members will be in Anchorage from Nome (thanks, Charlene!!); and I've lined up one or two interviews already. Mom was pretty happy to hear that my cousin, Rudy, will be there. Her cousin Gemma will be there as well. Overall, I think it's going to be a great, productive trip. And, Charlene and her son will be there.

My counselor today noted how different I sound about this trip than I did about the Greenland trip in August - she noted that I sounded more enthusiastic and energetic. I have this "I will go" rather than "I guess I'll go" attitude.

Weather forecast: temperatures ranging in the 20s to 30s for most of our visit. Probably some snow and it looked like it might be partly cloudy or cloudy through the weekend. They were expecting an inch or two accumulation yesterday, an inch today, and another inch tomorrow.

Yes, it'll be strange going from 65 and sunny yesterday to 20-something and snowy on Saturday. But I'm looking forward to it. I haven't been to Alaska for a year. I miss everyone! I miss the atmosphere. We're going during AFN - the Alaska Federation of Natives convention. There's always an aura of excitement and expectation. Fun stuff. I"m excited!!

BTW, I read the newsletter for ICC-Alaska yesterday. ICC stands for the Inuit Circumpolar Conference and it's the organization that meets every four years and brings together Inuit from Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland in order to lobby for certain political actions that will benefit all groups in the four nations. The Alaska office this past year applied for a grant from the Alaska state legislature to run a culture camp in Southwest (Yup'ik Eskimo territory) Alaska. Culture camps are camps where Alaska Native youth (or Native American youth here in the states) spend a week or more with elders, learning about traditional culture and language. Apparently, the Alaska state legislature approved the grant proposal . . . but Sarah Palin vetoed it and I don't think they were able to hold the camp. That might give you a clue as to who will get my vote this year ...